By KEVIN KAUMANS
Entertainment Editor
Good morning my friends, how was your weekend? Mine was fine, I guess.
I won five dollars that I got from a couple scratch cards I bought two weeks ago in Wichita and used it to buy two more tickets.
I know I shouldn’t; I know I’m more likely to make no money or not as much as the last time, but what can I say? I like money. And that, my beloved readers, brings us to our topic for today: Reboots, and why movie companies seem to push them more and more as we slog further through the 21st century.
Ever since 2020, it has felt like Hollywood as finally run out of ideas and the producers had all come together in one big meeting room and said: “You know what, remember all those franchises from the mid-to-late 1900s that moviegoers we can today use as a prime example of why our films are not all that interesting or inspiring anymore?
How about -instead of trying to create our own creative properties and try and bring joy and wonder to a new generation of people- we remake as many old movies as humanly possible and pray to God, Allah, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we do not go under when people finally get sick of it.”
“Oh, come on Kevin.” I hear you roll your eyes. “You are clearly exaggerating to pander to the grifters online who complain about anything slightly political.Movie Companies have been rebooting movies and TV shows before you were even born, why act so outraged about now?”
To answer your question: My problem is not that the concept of reboots themself exist, it is that it feels like that what 90% of newly released movies are nowadays.
Regardless of what spectrum your political views are on, I think we can all agree that “Disney” remaking one of their classics for the 9000th time has stopped becoming a meme at this point, and is now a tiresome reality.
Some people blame Hollywood’s reliance on the newest special effects.
Some blame the unnecessary race-swaps that rarely add anything to the story or even the characters themselves.
Others will say that it is the fault of the fact that the writers hardly change the original story, and that when they do, it is usually in ways that the fans of the classic movies hate.
A few weeks back, I took a good friend of mine to see the reboot of “The Naked Gun”.
The movie was (much to my surprise) actually decent. It was clever and random and even got a few laughs out of my friend. Despite being one of the only modern-day comedies that understands that a R-rated movie can not just get by with toilet humor and excessive cursing,
I still would not say it was anywhere near as good as the original 1988 film.
Mind you, this is not the fault of the actor or the people who work in editing. It is just that, in my personal opinion, the original was so absurd and nonsensical in a creative way that is almost impossible to imitate.
The point is, reboots often fail because they can not recreate the same amount of magic people had when watching the movies they are copying.
If you think I am wrong, then by all means, come up to me and tell me why when you see me on campus. Sound good?